Call me close minded

I am telling you right now, what I am about to say may be offensive to some, for that I apologize but I really need to say this…Now I consider myself a pretty open minded person. To some degree I have to be, I mean look I am a Black woman who happens to be married to a white guy with biracial kids who lives in Maine of all places. That type of background by its very nature should tell you that I am a pretty open person.

I have all kinds of folks in my life that I call friends ranging from raging Christian fundamentalists, gay and lesbians, pagans….really the whole range but some things, I am sorry I just don’t understand. I have recently run across some folks who consider themselves poly-amorous. In case you are not familiar with that term it means they are in relationships with multiple folks at the same time and everyone is aware of the situation….sorta like modern day swingers.

Now I don’t have a problem with folks who swing, but I am talking folks in families with kids and mutiple partners…maybe its my Christian roots showing but I don’t get that. So if you swing , can you enlighten a sista because honestly the more I hear about this, the more I find myself scratching my head going why?

I will be honest, I have always stated that I think in every relationship there should be one get out of jail card free…practically speaking that means you get one time to stray and I am not talking a full fledged relationship with someone else. I am talking you got drunk, skunky drunk and shit happens. Long as you are honest with me (don’t have me going to the gyno with burning or bumps) then we can work through it.

Now I know you are wondering wtf???? Didn’t she just say she is not down with polyamory? I did but for me what I am talking is a one time you fuck up card. Thankfully neither the Spousal Unit or I have ever called in that card and chances are we never will but I did start our marriage putting it out there because I figure if we are married at least as long as my folks were (31 years) I can forgive one lapse in judgement over a lifetime together. Now I would probably be unpleasant for a bit but it would not be the death of the relationship.

However having a regular girl or boy on the side is a problem and talking about moving that person in…well that is up there with I don’t get it. Maybe its me but logistically how the fuck does that work? Baby, I am with so and so tonight. More importantly how do 3-4 folks engage in a loving relationship all at the same time that presumably is sexual?

See, I feel like if feelings for another ever got that deep than maybe its time to reevaluate the primary relationship, I am sorry but that sort of love triangle seems like recipe for someone snapping and losing their mind. Not to equate myself with God but in the Old Testament of the Bible it says thou shall no other Gods before me and that he is a jealous God. Well I feel like thou shall have no other adult love interest but me for I am a jealous wife….yeah, that sounds bad but as someone who is often pushed to the max emotionally the idea of splitting myself emotionally with two men sounds like even more work that having one man. KWIM?

Then there is the issue of kids, how does one explain multiple parents? No, I am serious. Even here where I live parents with 2 moms and 2 dads well that’s normal at least in my world, but 2 dads 1 mom or 3 moms and 1 dad…I don’t get it and part of my writing this is not to bash anyone but to honestly say if you have this sort of situationm please tell me how it works because I have just presented all the reasons why I don’t get it.

I mean what woman hasn’t said she wished she had a wife? Got PMS and the ole man is horny, send your co-wife instead, that I get but what happens when I need some love and my co-wife got the love allotment? See, that would be problematic at least for me.

So excuse me if I was crass and offended you but the beauty of blogging is that I get to say what I want and even look for ways to expand my mind….happy Friday.

Related

i don’t have the emotional energy for one relationship right now. i can’t imagine trying to be in multiple romantic relationships. that sounds like way too much trouble to get into willingly.

June 20, 2009

frigginloon

Geez, how many times can you put the toilet seat down in a day? Hilda Swinton (the actress) is one of those poly-amorous cougars. She’s got the older artsy fartsy hubby and the younger “red carpet” accessory. I haven’t a clue how it works….but it sounds like an extra basket of laundry to me!

Some people don’t think that sexual monogamy is important for the bond between a couple… I can’t say that it would work for me AT ALL.

At the same time, perhaps sexual monogamy doesn’t solidify the emotional commitment in their minds.

One of my former co-workers had an open marriage and he told me that his wife had NO problems with him having sexual relationships as long as (1) he used protection and (2) he was NOT going out to hotels and stuff spending their money on these persons. His wife decided that he should bring his booty calls home with him and so he had a bedroom in the basement and he would have people in the basement getting his freak on overnight.

No, I am not kidding about this. He told me this.

I am sorry but noooo, that would never be okay with me.

Apparently, his wife would be upstairs while he had a booty call in the basement. I never got to meet her at any work-related events but I was dying to know what that chick looked like!

I mean, why would anyone be sooo desperate to keep a man to allow him to bring his booty call into her own house? It is more than baffling…it’s just very sad…

Now for those couples who are BOTH getting their freak on and they BOTH know about each other’s exploits, I think that perhaps there is dual sexual addiction and co-dependency operating in some of those scenarios…

Lemme explain a little about polyamory. People often mistake it for bigamy or straight-up cheating, but it’s not.

The whole premise of polyamory is that monogamy isn’t natural. If it were, why would people cheat so much? Why wouldn’t your sexual desire for other people cease as soon as you met that special someone?

Polyamorous people usually have different levels of partners. Your relationships with other people may be any combination of love, infatuation, sexual attraction, and emotional attraction. Some people have more than one primary partner (I think that would be difficult, but apparently it’s doable), and lots of people have a primary partner and then one or more secondary (or tertiary) partners.

Here are some examples of when you might consider a polyamorous relationship:

1. You like to have sex every night, but your husband only likes it once a week. You engage with a secondary partner so you’re happy and he’s not pressured. In the example BWBTT gave above, the wife may feel that the pressure to have sex is lifted from her. She may be completely secure in her and her husband’s commitment to each other, and not consider sex the defining element of her marriage.

2. You and your husband like the same amount of sex, but you have a job that requires you to travel a lot. You might have an open relationship during these travel times and be monogamous the rest of the year.

3. One or both of you might be attracted to more than one gender, and while you’re committed to each other, you like a few ladies on the side.

The most, most essential thing to a successful polyamorous relationship is honesty. Everyone involved, no matter how minor a player, needs to know what’s going on. You need to make rules (like the wife’s rule of ‘don’t spend money on them’) and stick to them. As with monogamous relationships, it’s only when the rules are broken that things get messed up. Your secondary partner shouldn’t think she’s your girlfriend. Your husband shouldn’t think you only have sex with him.

And the other thing is, you have to be completely cool with polyamory in order to be in a successful poly relationship. You have to be honest with yourself as well as with your partner(s). Anybody who enters an open relationship because they want their partner to be happy is doing the wrong thing. And if your perspective changes during the relationship, you have to change your arrangement to match that.

If you get jealous, then you’re probably not a good candidate for polyamory. Most polyamorous people think jealousy is a culturally sanctioned emotion that is often cast in a positive light (“Aw, it shows that she loves me”) when it is in fact a negative and debilitating thing. People know they SHOULDN’T be jealous, but tell themselves they just can’t help it.

To sum up: polyamory isn’t for everyone, but it works for a lot of people, and a true polyamorous relationship is based on honesty above all.

I hope I helped you to see where some polyamorous people are coming from.

I recently had to examine my knee-jerk, yes, negative reaction to this arrangement, because frankly, when I have that sort of reaction, it makes me ill. I ran it by my husband–you know, “hey, why should this bug me? I’m not the sort this sort of thing bugs…” His reaction–it shouldn’t, knock it off already. He was right. Who cares? If the family, and I believe people can and do build families, if that family makes it work and the kids are happy and healthy and loved (and in the polyamorous families I know of, they absolutely are) then why should it matter how they have worked things out or why they have, for that matter? I’m not personally looking for a polyamorous relationship, but I’ve decided I don’t care if other folks do. More love to go around can’t suck.